The group said that the DNR is backsliding in its regulatory role, noting problems are not improving and in some cases are worsening in areas such runoff pollution, well contamination and algae-clogged lakes.

In July 2011, the EPA cited 75 deficiencies by the DNR in its handling of water regulation matters and ordered the DNR to address them. DNR enforces water regulation under the federal Clean Water Act, with oversight by the EPA.

If a state isn't complying with the federal act, the EPA can take away its authority and assume the regulation.

The parties aren't asking the EPA to remove that authority now, but to take a greater oversight role and hold a public hearing in Wisconsin. Without improvement, the group says it will ask the EPA to take away the DNR's water regulation authority.

In other words, Wisconsin has failed to provide citizens in this state with the full range of federal clean water rights.The warning signs about the state's inaction in the race of obvious problems and EPA letter which the DNR has basically ignored have been visible for years, as this 2012 news story indicated:

Recent actions by the federal EPA show problems at the state regulatory agency may go deeper than enforcement numbers and may extend to problems with weakened and unclear environmental rules and standards, which are the basis for issuing and enforcing permits.

Most glaring is a memorandum the EPA sent to the agency last year detailing 75 "apparent omissions and deviations" from federal law in the rules used by the state to issue permits and regulate federal clean water laws. Among the deficiencies were several that are the result of regulation changes adopted under the Walker administration. The EPA, for example, questioned a Wisconsin regulation passed in May that would require state agencies to put water standards in place only if a law provides for it.

And two weeks ago, the EPA asked the DNR to correct what it said was an inadequate annual list of impaired lakes and rivers by adding 99 bodies of water the state agency failed to include in its original listing.

Such rebukes are rare, said Todd Ambs, who stepped down in 2010 as head of the DNR's water division. "It's really unusual for the EPA to put anything critical in writing, let alone send a 75-point letter," Ambs said.

If Wisconsin were really interested in environmental protection, the DNR would not have given the proposed expansion of the North-South Enbridge tar sand oil pipeline Number 61 an intentionally minimal review - - especially given the company's calamitous pollution record - - nor would the Legislature have approved a last-minute amendment to the state budget this summer blocking Dane County from requiring the company to obtain additional pollution insurance...

We'll see if the state complies promptly and effectively, but I doubt it. Walker likes confrontations with the feds - - as he did over the Amtrak contract cancellation and his refusal of Medicaid expansion dollars - - and will claim that the DNR he has slashed to fit his corporate agenda does not have the resources.

8 comments:

One day our boy is going to be handcuffed and thrown into a black car with tinted windows and taken to somewhere far, far away (or maybe just Marion, IL--who cares?). We'll see how much Mr. Unintimidated enjoys THAT confrontation with the feds.

Too bad there isn't a parallel Federal intervention to rescue us from the many other forms of state-government-inflicted injustice underway in WI. If not intervention, Federal scrutiny would be a start.

Your blog will be of critical support to future historians in writing this chapter of Wisconsin's history. Many thanks for keeping your readers abreast of the facts.

What? Walker and his cronies follow the law? Right now they are legalizing all of his criminality. Now we know why Koch brothers wanted Walker in the White House, to stand down and then legalize these shenanigans.

Consider that this is exactly what Walker wants. Get rid of the state apparatus that regulates and oversees water quality protection, discharge permits, and leave it to the grossly underfunded EPA. I don't see that as a good scenario. EPA doesn't regulate groundwater quality. They regulate drinking water and surface water quality. Regulation of drinking water is not the same as regulation of groundwater even if the source is groundwater. The safe drinking water act protects public health, not the environment. Treatment and not clean up is the solution to drinking water contamination. Permitted discharge permits would no longer address discharges to groundwater and chapter NR 140 would not apply to CAFOs or other NPDES permits anymore. This is a dream come true for big Ag and the sand miners who now have to meet the groundwater standards. There is a reason that Midwest Environmental Advocates is not pushing for loss of primacy and I sincerely hope that they don't make good on that threat.

"Such rebukes are rare, said Todd Ambs, who stepped down in 2010 as head of the DNR's water division. "It's really unusual for the EPA to put anything critical in writing, let alone send a 75-point letter," Ambs said."

Since these things don't happen overnight doesn't this mean that Ambs is somewhat culpable for the state's water quality?

Yah, sure. Waukesha has violated the Safe Drinking Water Act for 28 years with deep aquifer wells significantly over the MCL for radium dumping into the municipal distribution system untreated. The consent agreement allows this to continue until 2018 despite heavy violations that make the DNR, the agency of primacy under Walker, look reckless in their responsibility for enforcement. Human beings, customers of the Waukesha Water Utility, and their schools full of children are drinking water at times that is above the MCL with a chronic contaminant that can cause bone cancer, and they don't tell anyone when these violations are occurring.

Twitter

Facebook

What water, wetland protection is all about

"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.

Banned in Milwaukee

The right, suburbanites say "No light rail for Milwaukee."

James Rowen's Bio

James Rowen, a writer and consultant, has worked for newspapers, and as the senior Mayoral staffer, in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007. Posts run also at various news sites, including The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Purple Wisconsin."